Lestat vs. Twilight

I just finished watching “Twilight”, the newest “cool vampire” movie the ladies seem to be enthralled with, and the similarities to the older Lestat series, by Anne Rice, were immediately obvious, though with considerable differences.

 Lestat.  At this point I’ve read Interview With The Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, and Tales of the Body Thief.  I gave up after that last book, as it became apparent that these were no longer the stories of a vampire who may happen to be gay, and more like the adventures of a gay man, who just so happened to be a vampire.

 Plot in 500 words or less.  Lestat comes from 18^th century France, where he was a minor nobleman who went off to Paris with his male lover.  In Paris he’s turned into a vampire.  Eventually he learns of other vampires, including a secret society of them in a theater in Paris – “pretending” to be vampires as a cover.  He meets Armand, and then Marius, and eventually the original vampire, Akasha.  He takes a lover, Louis, and settles down in 19^th century New Orleans with him and raises a vampire girl, Claudia.  Then he goes into deep sleep and reawakens in the late 20^th century and forms a rock band.  His method of dealing with his blood addiction is to kill a mugger or murderer early in the evening and spend the rest of the night cavorting around.  Most of his adventures vary from same-sex vampire relationships to larger investigations into the origins of the vampires and/or battles with various other “evil” vampires.  Because he’s basically a lover, not a killer, and only kills bad people, this is yet another one of these “evil creature who acts good” deals.  Yet again.

 Before I hear another litany of “vampires can’t be gay” objections, let’s observe the obvious.  In Anne Rice’s world, “sex” as we know it, among vampires, is not the normal biological interaction between reproductive organs (male and/or female), but the consumption of blood of vampires by other vampires, producing what passes for orgasmic pleasure.  Lestat’s relationships, both in terms of this act, and in terms of his feelings of love and romance – what would pass for romantic relationships among normal mortals – are almost exclusively with male vampires: Nicol, Armand, Louis, etc.  His relationships with female vampires are platonic: his mother, Gabrielle, and Akasha, Queen of the Damned. 

 The clincher – as if anyone couldn’t recognize Lestat and Louis as a gay couple - comes from Tales of the Body Thief, when he trades bodies with a mortal male and expresses disgust and repulsion after having sex with a mortal woman, then falls into the arms of David Talbot, who himself shares his stories of affairs with teenage boys. Anyone refusing to acknowledge all this as “gay” is either willfully ignorant or simply stubbornly insisting on meaningless semantics.

 Twilight.  I didn’t read the book, I just saw the movie.  I can understand female attraction to Zac Efron, Brad Pitt, maybe even Patrick Dempsey.  But I can’t figure why Robert Pattison (Edward Cullen), who looks like he’s just been woken up out of a deep sleep, is considered “sexy”.  Sullen and somnolent?  These aren’t attractive to me in women, I see no reason why they should be endearing in men. 

 The girl, Bella, moves from sunny Arizona to live with her father in a small town in Washington State, “Forks”, where it’s perpetually cloudy and rainy, perfect for the mysterious clan of Cullens, a trendy and attractive group who keep to themselves and somehow disappear on the rare occasions when the sun comes out.  Of course, they are vampires, but they’ve learned to only kill animals, so they’re “good” vampires (zzz).  And of course, there is a crew of “bad” vampires who don’t agree with them, the most dangerous of which is James, who is called a “tracker”. 

 Needless to say, Bella falls in love with the inexplicably irresistible Edward, who can read everyone’s mind but hers, teleport instantly, move really fast, has superhuman strength, changes eye color, all the usual vampire traits with the convenient exception of being able to survive during daylight hours.  I always thought the restriction was “sunrise to sunset”, regardless of direct sunlight, which makes this “well, they’re ok if it’s raining” BS to be a major cop-out.  Here, the only bad effect of sunlight is to make their skin appear obviously nonhuman, but no actual harm.  Sure enough, the whole crew ends up in Phoenix – where it rarely rains and the sun is fairly prominent.  “Gay” vampires notwithstanding, at least Anne Rice adhered to this traditional element of the vampire myth, and only controverted it by extreme measures and extensive explanation and justification.

 Instead of being gay, the Cullens, and the bad vampires, are just super trendy.  Apparently there are no ugly, nerdy, or fashion-challenged vampires – one of their supernatural powers is an innate sense of what’s really cool.

 Girls vs. Women.  Each of these seems to appeal to pre-teen girls, but also to post-pubescent women.  As regards the former, vampires represent a cool way of indulging romance without the stigma, risk, or complications of sex, AIDS, or pregnancy.   A super cool, handsome, magic boyfriend who won’t bug you for sex – or worse, get you pregnant and then abandon you?  No wonder the Lestat crew was gay.  

            As for the latter, especially married women, I’d have to say part of it is a longing to return to that innocent time where romance was just holding hands and kissing.  Another part of it may be a subconscious desire to indulge in a theoretical, hypothetical, imaginary romance with a supernatural being who won’t make physical demands, and with whom the woman can “be with” without abandoning her real life husband and children. 

Part of the problem with achieving the dream every woman wants – getting married and having children – is that there is really little means of escape from the dream once its reality inevitably bares its cold fangs.  Children are rambunctious, unruly, and difficult to control.  They get sick.  They have soccer practice, homework, and other extracurricular activities quite apart from being washed, fed, clothed, or packed off to school.  They’re expensive.  But unlike a car, which can be sold or donated, or ultimately abandoned if it proves to be more trouble than it’s worth, we can’t exactly “sell” children simply because parenthood was far more inconvenient than we originally imagined it would be.  Granted, children are also a source of pride and pleasure, so it’s not like it’s ALL bad.  As with most things in life, there are good and bad sides to this. 

            Getting back to “Twilight”, notice that vampires never have children.  They “create” other vampires (with the obvious exception of Claudia) who are already at least teenagers, thus their “spawn” start off already able to look after themselves.  It’s more like recruiting friends into a clique of ultra-cool teens – post-children who agreed to adopt an unconventional, supernatural lifestyle.  In the “Twilight” case, they don’t even have to sleep during the day.  How conVENient.  A vampire family is an attractive, imaginary alternative to the real-life families so many adult women have locked themelves into, not necessarily “unhappy” or “desperate”, but certainly far less satisfied than they imagined they would be.  Like Harry Potter, it’s a guilty pleasure, and as with Harry Potter, I won’t begrudge anyone their indulgences.

    Anyhow, I wasn’t very much impressed with Bella – aside from being very attractive, she wasn’t very interesting or imaginative – perhaps the reason Edward couldn’t read her mind, was that she really didn’t have much inside it to read.   As for this whole “gay” business of Anne Rice: I was hardly any more impressed with “Twilight”, which replaced exotic, pretentious gay vampires, with a group of sullen, pretentious young, trendy non-gay vampires.  Ultimately the charm is lost on me, as it’s clearly meant to appeals to gays (which I’m not) or women (also which I’m not).  I’ve certainly long ago reached my quota for this business of “force of evil working for good”, be it Faust, Spawn, or “good vampires.”